Show Your Work 2004

[Peter Richardson]

Thanks guys. I will notify the webmaster and get it fixed. I will post here once it's up. Thanks for looking!

Peter

[Rob Lohman]

I liked them both as well! Especially redemption. I thought she
sits was a bit like a "what if" kind of story?

Great work!

[Dustin Waits]

Nice work! Only thing I would have made differently is in "She Sits", when it flashes to reality I would have used a bright white flash or something. Other than that they were great.

[Devin Doyle]

Nicholi - Thank you for your kind words! It's great to get feedback from the community. It was, as Dustin wrote, a split between reality and fantasy. The catch on this assignment was that it had to be straight cuts w/ music only, nothing too flashy, no visual effects (but we'll keep that MB look suite and white diffusion I put in on the hush-hush!). I wanted to throw in the flash to sell that split, but was unable to due to the rules. I'll def. put one for the copy that gets dubbed to my reel.

Dustin and Rob, thanks for taking the time to watch our little shorts. We're on our way to shooting 2 more, this time the only catch is that can only be 2 mins max. Thanks everyone for checking out our work!

[Dustin Waits]

OOh okay I getcha. I should have read your first post more thoroghly. Well in any case, Good Work! Keep them coming.

[Kyle Kauss]

Hey I'm new to the board just wanted to post a movie I made last fall the names loaded it's about a drug dealer that gets double crossed and comes back for revenge anyway it's about a 64 meg download in windows media video format. just go to this site and right click the loaded low file and hit save target as the download should start Tell me what you guys think

it's on a slower server sorry you'll have to wait a little while

http://65.29.54.30/loadedlow.wmv

[Bryan Roberts]

Hey guys, great work and great site! 10:17 I thought was a good short but what I thought really shined and has always shined with you guys is the post work. Your special fx and titles really show some talent beyond your filming work - not to say that the filming isn't good but I think because the rest is at a different level, it may take away from the filming. Also, Edward's tracks really brought this story to life, it moved it at a perfect pace in places and I especially loved the outro song that kicked in with the title at the conclusion. The last song had a Traffic feel to it, which I love.

There were also at times I thought the steadicam shots were almost overused. I understand that you guys have the home made one that obviously is very nice and works extremely well, I felt like you were almost trying to find a reason to use it. Awesome work though, great stuff!

[Nicholi Brossia]

Hi Kyle,
I just watched your movie and wanted to give my two cents worth and hopefully help out a little.

This was obviously a low budget film, but you made very good use of your resources. You did a great job with the gunfire/bullet wounds. Add that to all the guns, hopefully borrowed, and I'm reminded of "El Mariachi." Definately a good job there.

I couldn't help but notice how shakey the entire movie was. You've got the right idea with following the action, but that should generally be used in moderation. Instead of constantly moving the camera, try using more cuts and definately a tripod to steady the shots. This can provide a faster, more viewer friendly, and even more informative approach. It also gives a "professional" look to the film as well as provides more control over shot composition (as a side note, it would be a good idea to check out a composition tutorial/tips like this one http://www.video-animation.com/vidcam_06.shtml).

You actually did a good job with the audio. I'm guessing you just used the on-camera microphone, and it picked up well. Although, I did notice some room for improvement with the audio edits. One good practice to get into is not cutting the video and audio at the same time. Maybe bring the audio in a little before the video, or leave audio in for a while after the shot has changed just to provide ambient sound. This will provide more of a natural segue between shots as opposed to just jumping back and forth. You really don't need to worry about this one just yet, its a little more down the line, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

Overall, you did a good job telling the story.

[Spencer Houck]

Hey thanks for watchin',

Bryan, thanks for the comments on the post work, I'm definitely trying to hone my skills as an editor/effects man. I think you are correct that certain bits of the titles and such may pull you away from the story, which is totally not what they're supposed to do. In this way I'm both glad I got the experience, but sad that I may have overdone it.

Those steadicam shots you talked about were actually all dolly shots. We have the steadicam built, but unfortunately haven't had the time necessary to learn to fly it with the greatest of ease, so in actuality there are only 2 shots with the "steadicam". The first being the tracking shot where the lens flares up, and the second being an "unsteadicam" POV shot of Ben walking hastily to avoid the crowds. Anyway, we were definitely going for a ton of camera movement, hopefully that fact wasn't too noticeable.

BTW, Devin threw in some light flashes to sell that transition between real and fantasy in "She Sits So Close", (as long as the Prof. doesn't see this version he'll be ok)

Thanks again for the in-depth reply Bryan, please keep 'em coming everyone!

[Aaron Rosen]

Hey everyone. I recently took my camera to work and attempted to make my job look interesting. I sliced together the footage taken on my XL1s and scored the music in Apple's Soundtrack after I edited in Final Cut.

Let me know what you think.

It's 5.1 mb and a QuickTime Movie

www.pixel-mesh.com/media/video/thedispatcher.mov


- Aaron

[Evan Kubota]

Looks good, you can tell it was shot on video though. You might try playing with the Curves function (not sure how FCP does this, I do it in AE) and putting it in widescreen.

[Aaron Rosen]

Thanks.

It was 3 am when we shot it so it was a challenge to stay awake and play camrea / dispatcher guy.

My buddy Matt helped a lot.

I think some f the slow mo. stuff in the begining printout looks a bit fuzzy and amature.

Keep it coming all. I need the help.

[Kyle Kauss]

Hey thanks for the input, my audio did need a lot of work, and our camera had way to much movement on it. I'm filming a short this spring and these are some of the things I'll get fixed. Anyway thanks for the reply and if anyone has a better server that would be willing to host my film that would be great.

[Nicholi Brossia]

I think the video quality is very good, especially the Quicktime compression. Much better than the stereotypical internet video we've learned to love.

I also really like the music and sound effects (radio). That provides a COPS sort of feel, but the music lets me know there won't be any guys running around with no shirt on :).
There's a couple things with editing that you might want to try next time. In a couple shots, the camera is zooming in or out during the first couple frames, then it stops. Its usually a good idea to either have the shot still, or zooming throughout the entire shot (as in the zoom starts before and ends after the shot so the movement is consistant). There wasn't much to shoot in there and it looks like you tried applying some type of motion wherever you could, which is a good idea.

You had a lot of nice tight shots of the keyboard and computer screens, but what about the dispatcher? Some shots of him/you recieving and answering calls would give it a little more pizzaz.
Sometimes its hard, but be as creative as you can. Use interesting angles or maybe a nice rack focus from the microphone/radio to the dispatcher. One time I did a project about dispatchers and was allowed to stage (they may or may not let you do that) an incoming distress call. The video started with a person calling the security office (just a flat tire, nothing big), getting an answer, and then cut to the officer answering the call.
Being limited to 3am shooting times would be a challenge, but I thought I'd toss out an idea or two.

Overall it looks good, but I think if you could get some action in there (dispatcher) it would turn out a lot better.

[Alain Aguilar]

In my opinion you had a very good use of montage to suggest the job/machine/man relationship. I liked the music as well. Did you use dissolves to represent time compression. As if cutting to moments later? I also felt the sense of the dispatcher's enclosure created by your use of the camera angles.